0000000000307395
AUTHOR
Josephine Lau
Teachers’ professional agency in a centralisation-decentralisation system and a hierarchical cultural context : the case of Hong Kong
Teachers are frontline actors in actualising educational innovations. In some contexts, teachers’ professional agency is undervalued. This study investigated teachers’ agency and its related workplace affordances in Hong Kong, which features a centralised-decentralisation education governance system, and a hierarchical work culture. The study was based on 21 semi-structured interviews with teachers, and employed a deductive thematic analysis. Agency enactment was categorised into 1) pedagogical agency within classrooms, and 2) relational agency in the professional community. The factors contributing to workplace affordances were grouped as pertaining to 1) the collegial community, 2) school…
International Graduates’ Exercising of Agency for Employability : A Decade-Long Journey
Different factors drive students to pursue overseas study, such as better employment opportunities. Employability is used to describe the qualities needed for obtaining employment. It is an “active social process,” as one’s capitals and career identity transform with the labor market and job obtained. Using an open-ended questionnaire with five international graduates who pursued master’s level study a decade ago, this chapter investigates their enacted employability agency and related hindrances upon graduation. It also explores how the relations between the overseas study, their employability agency, and their present career. International graduates deployed various forms of capital when …